Gun trainer David Hayes says this year's Melbourne Cup is far from a match race between the last two winners of Australia's greatest race in Efficient and Viewed as he begins to warm to the chances of his lightly weighted import Changingoftheguard.
The four-year-old stallion (who is actually still a three-year-old by Northern Hemisphere breeding) has had just seven starts but Hayes has been delighted with his progress since his recovery from a foot abscess having already declared him a certain runner in next Tuesday's 3200 metre Cup.
Hayes said Changingoftheguard - which ran second in one of England's most prestigious handicap races the Ebor Handicap (2800 metres) at York two starts ago - had form every bit as good as another lightly-raced European three-year-old in Mahler, which ran third to Efficient in the 2007 Melbourne Cup.
And Changingoftheguard, like Mahler two years ago, will carry the feather weight of 50.5kg in the $5.65 million Melbourne Cup.
Hayes is far from daunted at taking on Efficient and Viewed - who will carry equal top weight of 58kg in the Melbourne Cup - despite his horse being the most inexperienced runner in the race.
"It's a great race because it's got two famous stayers but they are number ones (in weight order) and they don't win Melbourne Cups much," he said of Viewed and Efficient.
"Then we have got an up and coming horse in Alcopop and then a lot of handy horses."
But Hayes said his horse would have a significant advantage over a lot of other contenders because of his light weight.
"That is something that really kept drumming in my head when I woke up in the morning and was wondering what I was going to do with him," Hayes said saying running with such a light weight in the Cup was preferable to running at weight-for-age in Saturday's Group One MacKinnon Stakes over 2000 metres.
"And he has got similar or superior form to Mahler, who ran a great race (two years ago)," he added.
Hayes said Changingoftheguard had recovered superbly from his early setback upon his arrival in Australia.
"We are very happy with him," he said.
"I'm just glad we got that foot abscess two weeks from the race and not now because you would be in trouble if you got one now."
"The key component (in deciding to run in the Melbourne Cup) was how well he has thrived here, apart from the foot, and he has handled every bit of work I have given him."
"So we thought why not (run in the Melbourne Cup) - he was going to have a run anyway so we thought we might as well run in the big one with no weight."
"And his real form is at a mile and a half plus (2400 metres and beyond) so to run in the MacKinnon he might be just too slow."